Openldap and Multi-Master Replication in FreeBSD – Part VI: Connecting Clients

Connecting Clients:

What’s the use of having an OpenLDAP Directory if you do not have any clients connected to it?  In this article, attaching a Macintosh 10.9 Client to the OpenLdap Directory with standard schemas and storing the contents of our Home Directory on a NFS File Server is demonstrated.

 

Apple Mac Book Pro Continue reading “Openldap and Multi-Master Replication in FreeBSD – Part VI: Connecting Clients”

Openldap and Multi-Master Replication in FreeBSD – Part V: TLS/SSL to secure OpenLDAP Data

Using TLS/SSL to secure OpenLDAP Data:

With the advent of NSA snooping, corporate espionage, and general employee mischief, it’s time to start utilizing encryption to snoop-proof data streams emanating from corporate networks.  LDAP is but one of many protocols in which encryption is necessary – see flowchart below.  This article will focus on using TLS/SSL on the interconnected streams of data originating from and to an OpenLDAP Server and its dependent services.  It will not contain much in the area of OpenLDAP ACL’s as a means to segregate different users and data with differing levels of encryption, nor will it focus on SASL and Kerberos as a means to secure data.  Again, these topics will present themselves in a future related article.

 

ssl-layers image from www.zytrax.com
www.zytrax.com

Continue reading “Openldap and Multi-Master Replication in FreeBSD – Part V: TLS/SSL to secure OpenLDAP Data”

Openldap and Multi-Master Replication in FreeBSD – Part IV: Name Server Switch Setup

Name Server Switch using nss-pam-ldapd:

In Part IV, nss-pam-ldapd and /etc/nsswitch.conf are configured to allow the OpenLDAP server to provide user account, group, host name, etc. that would normally come from /etc/passwd, /etc/group, or NIS. Continue reading “Openldap and Multi-Master Replication in FreeBSD – Part IV: Name Server Switch Setup”

Openldap and Multi-Master Replication in FreeBSD – Part III: Replication

Replication using Syncrepl N-Way Multi-Master:

 

In Part II of this series, phpLDAPadmin was installed and configured to manage an OpenLDAP Directory.  Part III will demonstration OpenLDAP Replication using Syncrepl N-Way Multi-Master configuration. Continue reading “Openldap and Multi-Master Replication in FreeBSD – Part III: Replication”

Openldap and Multi-Master Replication in FreeBSD – Part II: PHPLdapAdmin

Managing OpenLDAP with phpLDAPadmin:

 

In the last article, we demonstrated setting up and configuring a basic OpenLDAP Server for authentication.  However, to manage your newly minted OpenLDAP Directory, a front-end to provide that functionality.  In this post, Apache 2.4, PHP 5 and phpLDAPadmin will be installed and configured to manage your Directory. Continue reading “Openldap and Multi-Master Replication in FreeBSD – Part II: PHPLdapAdmin”

Openldap and Multi-Master Replication in FreeBSD – Part I: OpenLDAP

Installing and configuring OpenLDAP:

Part I of this series on OpenLPAD concentrates on configuring a simple OpenLDAP Server.  Our goal in adopting OpenLDAP is to provide an authentication mechanism for our LAN Clients, in particular Macintosh OSX Clients, to login to the network and work with data on network shares.  Additionally, the installation of OpenLDAP will include the new backend database lmdb – OpenLDAP’s own Lighting Memory-Mapped Database to store Openldap objects. Continue reading “Openldap and Multi-Master Replication in FreeBSD – Part I: OpenLDAP”

Unbound Caching and NSD Local Authoritative Master Slave DNS Server – Part II

NSD – Authoritative DNS Server:

In Part I of our tutorial, Unbound is used as a caching DNS Server for clients on our LAN.  If any local DNS resolution is needed, Unbound is configured via it’s stub-zone to parse the query to an authoritative DNS Server, and in this case, it is NSD. Continue reading “Unbound Caching and NSD Local Authoritative Master Slave DNS Server – Part II”

Unbound Caching and NSD Local Authoritative Master Slave DNS Server – Part I

Unbound: Caching DNS Resolver

When FreeBSD 10 removed Bind from the base, a certain level of uneasiness and relief was felt in the FreeBSD Community.  Always fond of Bind, it was time to move on to an alternate without all the complexity, security issues, licensing and feature bloat of Bind.  For these and other reasons, Unbound was chosen as a caching DNS server and NSD for an authoritative DNS Server for local zones.  Additionally, redundancy is required since this is a production environment which requires uninterruptible DNS resolution. Our environment will consist of two physical servers both configured as follows: Continue reading “Unbound Caching and NSD Local Authoritative Master Slave DNS Server – Part I”

Finding the right time with Openntpd

OpenNTPd:

In the past, the built-in ntpd server in Freebsd served me well.  Since ntpd binds to all addresses on port 123, ntpd complained incessantly in jailed environments because jails expect to have exclusive access to the jail address.  Although it did not cause my server or jails to crash, it’s always better to be safe than sorry and fix the problem now rather than wait for a problem to manifest itself.

In search for a solution, openntpd can be utilized without binding to any address or addresses.  This makes it attractive for jailed environments. Continue reading “Finding the right time with Openntpd”

Tmux – the Terminalator

Tmux:

How many times have you ssh into your server, only to have your connection interrupted and your terminal session abruptly closed?  This can be problematic especially if processes are running in the background or you are compiling large programs with many dependencies.  The solution – use tmux, the terminal multiplexer. Continue reading “Tmux – the Terminalator”